Catboy on Dubai’s most outrageous & fanciful plans

Our man on the radio Catboy discovers that if you turn your back on Dubai for one second it’ll go and launch a gaggle of crazy projects before you can say ‘Marhaba’…

As you may remember from last month’s issue, I was out of the country for a month. Not only was I out of the country, I was also avoiding as much news and social media as possible. In fact, other than posting a preposterous number of holiday snaps on Instagram, I saw and read very little.

Now that I’m back – and after ‘going dark’ for so long – I’ve realised just how stupendous a place the UAE is. If we weren’t actually here living it, I reckon we wouldn’t believe some of the things we see in this country. It reminds me of this lad called John I went to school with. He was a nice guy but he told the most outrageous stories.

Catboy and his fam’ are back in Dubai after a month-long island holiday: the latest projects and plans in the emirate are all a bit much for this radio star…

Once, when playing snooker with my friends, he told us that his Dad had a snooker table that was 24 feet long. That’s twice as long as the tables used in competition. He also said he had a speedboat on holiday and got a remote-controlled fly for Christmas.

Of course, we all assumed he was lying. None of us ever saw his fly, speedboat or massive snooker table. They were just the fabrications of an eight-year-old boy trying to impress his school friends.

Arriving back in the UAE after my holibobs was like bumping into John in the schoolyard. We were greeted with fanciful news stories that were very hard to swallow…

First of all there’s Dubai’s new Crocodile Park. Far too random a sentence to be true, right? Well, apparently not. According to reports, a couple of hundred crocodiles will be hanging out behind Mushrif Park. That means anyone living in Mirdif or up that way will have crowds and crocodiles as neighbours. Let’s hope both organisations have decent locks or Al Warqaa could end up resembling a scene from Jumanji.

Here’s what the Dubai Crocodile Park will look like (we just hope those fences are strong).

Then there’s Hyperloop. Now, I’ve not really looked into this but from what I can gather, we’ll soon be able to jump into a pod inside a tube and be sucked or shot to Fujairah in ten minutes. The concept seems to be similar to the pneumatic pods used in some department stores for moving cash around.

The Hyperloop – “absolutely terrifying”.

It all sounds very ‘space age’ and, for someone like me who is terrified of rollercoasters, absolutely terrifying. All the same, it’s progressive and shows how forward thinking the UAE is. However, in all the Hyperloop hyperbole (sorry, I really couldn’t help myself), one question is surely being left unanswered…

Who really needs to get to Fujairah that fast?!

Don’t get me wrong. I love the place. My family and I often load-up the 4×4, jump in and drive through the mountains. For me that’s all part of the experience. The drive; the views of the desert; singing along to the radio in the car; and arguing over the boiled sweets and Haribo. I’m not sure I want that journey condensed into a matter of minutes.